Midnight Mammoth headed to Pacific Classic
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Midnight Mammoth, claimed for $50,000 in 2023 and a graded stakes winner last year, will race next in the Grade 1 Pacific Classic at Del Mar on Aug. 30.
Midnight Mammoth, trained by Craig Dollase for Jeffrey Sengara, was second at 12-1 behind Skippylongstocking in the Grade 2 Hollywood Gold Cup at Santa Anita on May 26 in his last start. A 6-year-old gelding, Midnight Mammoth was scratched from the Grade 2 San Diego Handicap at 1 1/16 miles at Del Mar on July 26.
“The way the race was setting up, we decided by bypass and come into this with a fresh horse,” Dollase said.
Dollase is based at Los Alamitos this summer while Santa Anita’s barn area is closed during the Del Mar meeting. Midnight Mammoth is scheduled to have a six-furlong workout at Los Alamitos this weekend.
“We took a different approach this year,” Dollase said of a summertime training venue.
Midnight Mammoth won the Grade 3 Cougar II Stakes at 1 1/2 miles at Del Mar in 2024, a race that has been discontinued. Midnight Mammoth missed an intended start in the Pacific Classic last summer after incurring an injury days before the race. He did not race again until January of this year.
Midnight Mammoth won an allowance race at 1 1/16 miles at Santa Anita in April, his only win in six starts this year.
The prospective field for the $1 million Pacific Classic is led by Nysos, winner of the San Diego Handicap, and possibly Journalism, winner of the Grade 1 Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park on July 19. Trainer Michael McCarthy and the partnership that owns Journalism have not announced where the 3-year-old will start, but the Pacific Classic is under consideration.
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